University of Linköping Spring 2001
Institution of Economics Ehlimana Kilim
Department of Political Science Jenny Persson
Master Thesis
Tutor: Geoffrey Gooch University of Sarajevo Faculty of Political Science Tutor: Sacir Filandra
REPATRIATION IN BOSNIA AND
HERCEGOVINA
- an Analysis of Institutional Problems in BiH, with Examples from Ilidza
We would like to thank the Swedish Institute that has made this study possible by providing us a scholarship for Minor Field Studies. We would also like to thank each one who has helped
us during our stay in Sarajevo, especially our tutor at the University of Sarajevo, Sacir Filandra and the Human Rights Center in Sarajevo.
Avdelning, Institution Division, Department Ekonomiska Institutionen 581 83 LINKÖPING Datum Date 2001-09-28 Språk Language Rapporttyp
Report category ISBN
Svenska/Swedish
X Engelska/English Licentiatavhandling Examensarbete ISRN Statsvetenskap 2001/7
C-uppsats X D-uppsats Serietitel och serienummer
Title of series, numbering ISSN
Övrig rapport
____
URL för elektronisk version
http://www.ep.liu.se/exjobb/eki/2001/ska/007/
Titel
Title Återvandring i Bosnien och Hercegovina, en analys av institutionella problem i BiH med exempel från Ilidza Repatriation in Bosnia and Herecgovina, an Analysis of Institutional Problems in BiH, with examples from Ilidza
Författare
Author Ehlimana Kilim, Jenny Persson
Sammanfattning
Abstract
The aim of this study is to analyse the institutional problems which restrain the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons to and within Bosnia and Hercegovina with examples from the municipalities of Ilidza, Bosnia and Hercegovina. With intention to fulfil the aim of this study we will try to answer what problems that are connected to the Dayton Peace Agreement and how those problems impact the repatriation issue. Further we intend to discern what role the culture, values and norms play in the repatriation process. We also try to answer what formal institutional problems exist in BiH and what importance they constitute on the repatriation process. Finally we are discussing whether it is possible or not to institutionalise the repatriation process. The thesis is based on the interviews we made in BiH during the spring 2001.
During the war in BiH, more than 2,3 million people were displaced from their homes. Each of the wartime regimes allocated abandoned properties and established complex legal and
administrative barriers to return, designed to make the separation of the population irreversible. In this way the separation of the population was permanent. Several years of international efforts have achieved a legal framework that recognises property rights as they stood at the beginning of the conflict, and establishes a legal and administrative claims process for the repossession of the
property.
DPA is considered one of the most complicated peace agreements ever constructed and it consists of several objectives, which aim to uphold a tolerant and democratic constitutional state. There are several paradoxes connected to Annex 7 and the fact that both entities were allowed to have their own constitutions, in which they do not recognise each other constitutional rights, may seem peculiar when they at the same time are supposed to constitute one unity, one country. The federal bodies in the country began to develop before the national bodies were functioning. This has created inconsistencies between the different bodies and between the different legal frameworks and DPA still has a long way to go before being completely implemented.
Ethnic nationalist feelings play an important role in political life in BiH and they constitute an effective impediment in the repatriation process. Nationalism has become a common element in the daily life in BiH. Thinking of that the entity constitutions refer to the citizens in the opposite entity as others shows how they perceive each other. After the war each ethnic group seems to concentrate on protecting their own rights, otherwise they will be lost. Citizens in BiH do not have the same constitutional rights in both entities and before this question is solved, a safe minority return is not possible.
The functioning of the judicial system is an important factor in the repatriation process. A problem is that the laws are often contradictory or incomplete. This problem is visible on the local level, where politicians often do not know which law to refer to the result is that the local actors do not know how to interpret the laws and then they often do it arbitrarily or they just ignore the laws. The result is often a situation of passing the buck and the citizen stands powerless to the public officials’ demands. This problem is referred to as the state wall of administrative silence and it is a frequent phenomenon at the local level that severely delays the repatriation process. This attitude reciprocity has been common in both municipalities for a long time, as well as in BiH in general, which has resulted in a slow and inefficient repatriation process.
Post-war Bosnia and Hercegovina finds itself at a crossroads between an antiquated mechanism that protects state authorities on the one hand, and a modern state institution that serves the citizens and protects their rights on the other. In BiH the new institutions imposed by external powers meet the old institutions, which still are powerful. Those are not synchronised in a way they should, i.e. the old structure or the structure leftover from the collapse of Yugoslavia impedes the new structure rather then collaborating with it. The issue of repatriation has been caught in a structural chaos and BiH has a long way to go before a non-political integration can become a reality.
Nyckelord
Keyword
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to analyse the institutional problems which restrain the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons to and within Bosnia and Hercegovina with examples from the municipalities of Ilidza, Bosnia and Hercegovina. With intention to fulfil the aim of this study we will try to answer what problems that are connected to the Dayton Peace Agreement and how those problems impact the repatriation issue. Further we intend to discern what role the culture, values and norms play in the repatriation process. We also try to answer what formal institutional problems exist in BiH and what importance they constitute on the repatriation process. Finally we are discussing whether it is possible or not to institutionalise the repatriation process. The thesis is based on the interviews we made in BiH during the spring 2001.
During the war in BiH, more than 2,3 million people were displaced from their homes. Each of the wartime regimes allocated abandoned properties and established complex legal and administrative barriers to return, designed to make the separation of the population irreversible. In this way the separation of the population was permanent. Several years of international efforts have achieved a legal framework that recognises property rights as they stood at the beginning of the conflict, and establishes a legal and administrative claims process for the repossession of the property.
DPA is considered one of the most complicated peace agreements ever constructed and it consists of several objectives, which aim to uphold a tolerant and democratic constitutional state. There are several paradoxes connected to Annex 7 and the fact that both entities were allowed to have their own constitutions, in which they do not recognise each other constitutional rights, may seem peculiar when they at the same time are supposed to constitute one unity, one country. The federal bodies in the country began to develop before the national bodies were functioning. This has created inconsistencies between the different bodies and between the different legal frameworks and DPA still has a long way to go before being completely implemented.
Ethnic nationalist feelings play an important role in political life in BiH and they constitute an effective impediment in the repatriation process. Nationalism has become a common element in the daily life in BiH. Thinking of that the entity constitutions refer to the citizens in the opposite entity as others shows how they perceive each other. After the war each ethnic group seems to concentrate on protecting their own rights, otherwise they will be lost. Citizens in BiH do not have the same constitutional rights in both entities and before this question is solved, a safe minority return is not possible.
The functioning of the judicial system is an important factor in the repatriation process. A problem is that the laws are often contradictory or incomplete. This problem is visible on the local level, where politicians often do not know which law to refer to the result is that the local actors do not know how to interpret the laws and then they often do it arbitrarily or they just ignore the laws. The result is often a situation of passing the buck and the citizen stands powerless to the public officials’ demands. This problem is referred to as the state wall of administrative silence and it is a frequent phenomenon at the local level that severely delays the repatriation process. This attitude reciprocity has been common in both municipalities for
a long time, as well as in BiH in general, which has resulted in a slow and inefficient repatriation process.
Post-war Bosnia and Hercegovina finds itself at a crossroads between an antiquated mechanism that protects state authorities on the one hand, and a modern state institution that serves the citizens and protects their rights on the other. In BiH the new institutions imposed by external powers meet the old institutions, which still are powerful. Those are not synchronised in a way they should, i.e. the old structure or the structure leftover from the collapse of Yugoslavia impedes the new structure rather then collaborating with it. The issue of repatriation has been caught in a structural chaos and BiH has a long way to go before a non-political integration can become a reality.
Keywords: Bosnia and Hercegovina, Dayton Peace Agreement, institutionalism, nationalism, ethnicity, refugees, repatriation, structure and agency.
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ... 9
1.1 AIM AND QUESTIONS... 11
1.2 DELIMITATIONS... 11
1.3 PREVIOUS AND CONTEMPORARY FIELDS OF RESEARCH... 11
1.3.1 Material and choice of theories...12
1.3.2 Pilot project ...13 1.4 CENTRAL CONCEPTS... 13 1.5 DISPOSITION... 14
2 METHOD ... 16
2.1 QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS... 18 2.2 OBSERVING PARTICIPATION... 22 2.3 INTERVIEWEES... 233 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK... 26
3.1 THE DUALITY OF STRUCT URE AND AGENCY... 26
3.2 INSTITUTIONALISM... 30
3.2.1 March and Olsen’s Institutionalism ...32
3.2.2 Powell and DiMaggio’s institutionalism ...35
3.3 NATIONALISM AND ETHNICITY... 37
3.3.1 Nationalism and ethnicity in the former Yugoslavia...39
4 STRUCTURES AND AGENTS IN BIH... 42
4.1 NATIONAL LEVEL... 42
4.2 THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENTITIES... 43
4.2.1 The Federation...43
4.2.2 Republika Srpska...44
4.2.3 The municipalities of Ilidza...44
4.3 INTERNATIONAL ACTORS... 45
4.3.1 Dayton Peace Agreement ...47
4.3.2 The interviewees’ opinion of DPA and Annex 7 ...47
4.4 THE PLIP ... 48
4.5 DPA AND PLIP- SUCCESS OR FAILURE?... 50
5 CULTURE, VALUES, RULES AND RESOURCES... 52
5.1 NATIONALISM AND ATTITUDES... 53
5.2 ATTITUDE TOWARDS INTERNATIONAL ACTORS... 57
5.3 THE INFLUENCE OF VALUES, CULTURE, RULES AND RESOURCES... 58
6 FORMAL INSTITUTIONS... 62
6.1 LEGAL PROBLEMS... 62
6.2 ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS... 64
6.3 CO-OPERATION AND INFORM ATION FLOW... 67
6.4 FORMAL INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS... 69
7 CLOSING DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS... 74
REFERENCES
ABBREVIATIONS
BiH Bosnia and Hercegovina
CRPC Commission for Real Property Claims
DP Displaced Person
DPA Dayton Peace Agreement
HDZ Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica, Croatian Democratic Union
ICG International Crisis Group
IF Ilidza Federation, only called Ilidza in reality IPTF International Police Task Force
IS Ilidza Srpska
OHR Office of the High Representative
OMI Odsijek ministarstva za izbjeglice, a local sub-department of the Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons of Republika Srpska
OSCE Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
PLIP Property Law Implementation Plan
RS Republika Srpska
SBiH Stranka za Bosnu i Hercegovinu, Party for Bosnia and Hercegovina SDA Stranka Demokratske Akcije, Party of Democratic Action
SDP Socijalisticka Demokratska Partija, Social Democratic Party
SDS Srpska Demokratska Stranka, Serbian Democratic Party
SFOR Stabilisation Force (NATO and UN)
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNMIBH United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Hercegovina
1 INTRODUCTION
In 1990 and the beginning of 1991, the Serb minority in Croatia, on Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH) north-western border, began to fight for independence, since they claimed that they were about to loose their cultural identity in the new nationalist Croatia. This development lead to riots and mobilisation of the military. The Bosnian Serbs instead claimed that they were threatened by ‘Islamic fundamentalists’. As in the other republics the communist party in BiH had disintegrated and nationalist parties had been formed. The Croatian leader Tudjman on the other hand, was convinced that the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnjaks, were of Croatian origin. Bosnian officials now felt a threat from both Serbia and Croatia of a want to redraw the map. Here is one big difference; Milosevic wanted an alteration of the borders but Tudjman did not, because then his Croatia would be one of the first to suffer. The strong propaganda from Serbia about the imperilment of the Bosnian Serbs brought the Bosnjaks and the Croats somewhat together against the Serbs. Three nationalist parties developed, the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Bosnjak party, of which two, SDA and HDZ fought for the preservation of the current borders.1
In the elections in the end of 1990, the nationalist parties won full majority and together they had 96 percent of the seats in the National Assembly. The general position in politics by this time was very tense. Milosevic actively demolished the federal government and soon he declared that Serbia would no longer obey the federal presidency. The situation of the Serbs in Croatia became more serious and militant and in the middle of 1991, the Bosnian Serbs, with the SDS, claimed the secession of large parts of northern and western BiH. The SDS was following the exact same method as they had done in Croatia the year before. Milosevic and the Bosnian SDS leader Karadzic begun to arrange secrete arm deliveries to the Bosnian Serbs. By this time there was a full-scale war in the other parts of Yugoslavia and in June 1991 both Croatia and Slovenia declared independence. Serbs openly began to express their want to incorporate BiH with Serbia, since the Muslims in reality were islamicised Serbs. They started to send out troops to protect the borders of the ‘Serb Autonomous Regions’. The Bosnian leader Izetbegovic was caught in the middle when he had to choose between Tudjman and Milosevic, but instead he declared BiH neutral between Croatia and Serbia.2
When the independence of Croatia and Slovenia was recognised, it became necessary for BiH to seek for independence, otherwise it would have to remain a part in a rump Yugoslavia, and then under Serbian control. A referendum was held and the majority said yes to independence, it was a majority even if the SDS tried to prevent the ballot boxes to enter the areas of BiH. The Serb and the Serbian politicians and media created a political psychosis, where the defence of the rights of the Serb people was given absolute status and when this was fully established, the step to military action was an easy one to take.3
On the 6th of April 1992, BiH was recognised as an independent state by the EEC. Even if there had been brief moments of quasi-independence a few times before this was the first appearance as an independent state since 1463. Critics argued that BiH impossibly could be an independent state and the history was proof of that BiH only could exist as a part of a larger whole. They argued that BiH never could be an independent state because it consisted
1
Malcolm, Noel, Bosnia, a Short History, Macmillan Ltd, London 1994, pp 215
2
Ibid, pp 222
3
of three different nationalities. History shows that the national hostilities that exists within BiH have reach its point of inter-ethnic violence as a result of outside pressures, that is the ambitions of its larger neighbours, and not from internal tensions. The long process of nationalist competition between Croatia and Serbia has made Bosnia’s internal politics more disorderly than it otherwise would have been, when trying to convince the Orthodox and Catholic Bosnians to think of themselves as Croats or Serbs. By the time of the independence day, the war had already begun in north-eastern Bosnia, where Serb paramilitary groups attacked towns with large Bosnjak populations. In the end of April it was estimated that 95 % of the Bosnjak population in Zvornik, Foca and Visegrad had fled their homes. At the same time Serb media sent out propaganda that the local Serbs had to defend themselves against their Bosnjak neighbours and after having seen the hostilities in Croatia, the locals were easy to convince. 4
The intervention of international actors was at the time equal to zero. The EC made clear to the US that this was a ‘European problem’. The EC and the US were unwilling to defend the sovereignty they had recognised and UN was at the time unwilling to send peacekeeping troops to the area.5 In the beginning of the hostilities, UN was building up headquarters in Sarajevo, but in the beginning of May, most of the UN force was already withdrawn. According to Malcolm the largest failure of the western politicians was that they only looked at the symptoms of the war instead of trying to understand the causes of it. Malcolm means that it seems as if they did not even want to understand the nature of Milosevic’s politics. Instead of treating the war as a political problem, they insisted on treating it as a military problem where all parts were to blame. Eventually it became clear to the international actors that the Serbs had several detention camps in the northern Bosnia, but they still considered the war as a civil war. This was shown when the EEC negotiator treated the Serbs as an equal party in the negotiations with equally valid claims. The Western politicians tried to create a political settlement by dividing the country into autonomous cantons. The problem was that these cantons got an ethnic stamp and this led to a competition between Croat and Bosnjak forces in areas where there before had been mixed populations. Further this led to a break down of the alliance between Croats and Bosnjaks and in 1993 there was a large scale fighting between them.6
Woodward also argues that the Western governments and politicians have failed in several aspects. According to Woodward the most serious failure was their inability to prevent the war and by ignoring the developments within the country and the effects on BiH of actions outside the country, they reinforced the factors leading to war and to ethnic division.7
During the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina, more than 2,3 million people were displaced from their homes. Each of the wartime regimes allocated abandoned properties and established complex legal and administrative barriers to return, designed to make the separation of the population irreversible. In this way the separation of the population was permanent. Several years of international efforts have achieved a legal framework that recognises property rights as they stood at the beginning of the conflict, and establishes a legal and administrative claims process for the repossession of the property.
To date, little attention has been paid to the role public administration and institutional problems play in the repatriation process in BiH. Instead most organisations working in the
4
Malcolm, pp 234
5
Woodward, Susan L, Balkan Tragedy, The Brooking Institution, Washington 1995, p 211
6
Malcolm, pp 241
7
area concentrate on the judicial system. The fact that even municipal officials exercise influence on the lives and legal rights of the ordinary citizen has not got the attention the area deserve. Relatively few citizens get in contact with the court system and instead there is a constant flow of individuals at municipal and cantonal level. The citizens often meet a wall of seemingly incomprehensible laws and regulations, which intimidates ordinary people. Direct interaction between individuals and public administration is most common and fundamental at the municipal level and it is on this level the government ministries deal with the majority of individual requests. Therefor we find the municipal level most interesting to focus on, in our thesis.
1.1 Aim and questions
The aim of this study is to analyse the institutional problems that restrain the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons (DPs) to and within Bosnia and Hercegovina with examples from the municipalities of Ilidza.
With intention to fulfil the aim of this study we will try to answer the following questions:
1. What problems are connected to the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) and what importance do they constitute on the repatriation process?
2. How do culture, values and norms constrain the repatriation process?
3. What formal institutional problems exist in BiH and how do they constrain the repatriation process?
4. Is it possible to institutionalise the repatriation process?
1.2 Delimitations
In this thesis we are focusing on the situation in Bosnia and Hercegovina after the war. We are not trying to find the causes of the war or to discuss the war itself. The subject of our study is the conflict between the Bosnjaks and the Serbs in the entity border area. We have chosen not to discuss the conflict that exists between the Serbs and the Croats nor the conflict between the Bosnjaks and the Croats. We have chosen to leave out these conflicts since we do not find them relevant in the case of Ilidza, where the Bosnjaks and the Serbs are in majority. There are many important factors within the repatriation issue such as for instance work, education and social welfare, but the main focus lies on the primary condition for the repatriation, which is the repossession of lost property. Thus, since we are studying the conditions that have influenced the outcome and not the results themselves, we will not pay any notable attention to the actual outcomes.
1.3 Previous and contemporary fields of research
There are two different aspects of the previous and contemporary research when studying BiH, the aspect of time and the aspect of the writers’ origin. The time perspective considers pre-war and post-war literature (i.e. civil war), while the second classification distinguishes the domestic literature from the rest of the world’s literature.
Within the pre-war literature BiH, as a component of former Yugoslavia, is also handled as such. The foreign literature from this period is mostly concerned with the history of Slaves or
the history of Yugoslavia and its peoples during the World War I and II. The domestic literature from this period of time has on the other hand been supervised and thus constrained by the communist regime and is either embellishing the picture of the situation or consists of false information, as the case in several communist societies. The complicating circumstance in the case of Bosnia, besides the communist past, is its multi-ethnicity.
Which view of history that is true or untrue is still a sensitive issue in former Yugoslavia and BiH. The one reason is the multi-ethnicity of Yugoslavia and BiH and different ethnic groups’ opinion about the history of the country. This has not directly been improved by the war, sooner the opposite. The fact is that certain persons, who were political prisoners during the communists, became political leaders after the breakdown of communism, as for instance Alija Izetbegovic and Slobodan Milosevic. Those leaders personified the blossom of the nationalism and authorised the ethnic groups’ endeavour for their own identity, which includes their own history view. Thus the domestic history research has been impacted by this fact. Concerning the post-war research on BiH by Bosnians themselves, we have recognised those researchers, recognised within the international scientific circles. Those are few, for instance there is our tutor at the University of Sarajevo, Sacir Filandra, who has also recently worked as a professor at the University of Yale, USA.
Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton, by David Chandler is one book worth mentioning
for our research, since it gets closest to the subject compared to the rest of the literature. Chandler points out the involvement of the International Community as too large, in a negative manner, since the people of BiH according to him have relied on the West too long. One of the more important conclusions is that Bosnians have lost the sense of ability to act on their own and so democracy and stability in BiH are faked and enforced by the International Community, and probably even sustainable as long as the International Community is present in the country. One of the biggest issues in BiH, the minorities and their return or non-return are influenced by the requirements of the International Community. Nevertheless, Chandler focuses on the election and the politics on the basis of the party system, which makes his book useful to a certain extent. Additional sources have been reports that among others International Crisis Group (ICG), OSCE and UNHCR compile at intervals in order to highlight current pressing issues.
The post-war literature about Bosnia and Hercegovina mostly reflects on the war, the reasons and inevitably the consequences of it. There is no specific literature written on the refugee and displaced persons’ return to or within BiH. A possible explanation is that the minorities return is non-static, but an ongoing process, and the situation changes rapidly. Secondly, the minority return started seriously during 1998. There are also other difficulties when doing research in BiH such as language skill, since few Bosnians speak English.
1.3.1 Material and choice of theories
The theory of structure and agency constitute the theoretical frame of the thesis, i.e. this is the perspective we have chosen as starting point. The thesis is based on the assumption that structure is an important determinant of the behaviour of actors, i.e. we have taken a structuralist starting point. BiH is a country of constant change where old institutions meet new but where the old structure still is powerful and influential. Therefor we find institutionalism an adequate way to tackle the repatriation problem. The theory of structure and agency and institutionalism overlap each other in several areas and they are sometimes
difficult to separate. Nationalism is a phenomenon that permeates the history of and the daily life in BiH, why we also consider this theory as an appropriate explaining factor of the repatriation issue.
In this thesis we are using both primary and secondary sources, where we as primary sources refer to the interviews. Secondary sources are mainly books of theory and method, but also scientific articles and reports. The material collection of the thesis differs and varies in content, character and importance. Since our thesis is based on a case study our research constitute the main part of the empirical section. The emphasis is yet on the interviews. A detailed description of the empirical section is given in the method section. The first part, the introduction is principally based on Noel Malcolm’s book Bosnia, a Short History. We chose this book since our mentor in Sarajevo recommended it as one of the most complete, reliable and elaborated literature on the history of BiH. In the theory section we summarise the main parts of the theories, and the space of the theories is based on the certain theory’s relevance for the thesis. In the section of structure and agency we have mainly used Anthony Giddens’ books The Constitution of Society and Central Problems in Social Theory. We have chosen Giddens since his works are well known in the structure and agency debate. We have also used several other authors to complement Giddens and to widen our understanding. Institutionalism is our main theory and this section is primary based on two works; March and Olsen’s Rediscovering Institutions and Powell and DiMaggio’s The New Institutionalism in
Organisational Analysis. We have chosen these authors since they are considered important
contributors to the development of institutionalism. We have in this section also used a number of scientific articles as complement. In the section of nationalism and ethnicity we have both books and articles, for instance by James G Kellas. There are several different branches and variations of these theories and we have chosen to focus on the nationalism and ethnicity that has developed in Eastern Europe and specifically in former Yugoslavia.
1.3.2 Pilot project
The repatriation issue of BiH has gone from being a highly prioritised issue to be more or less neglected the last couple of years. The war and the causes of it mostly concern the literature on the area. There is not much literature on the situation in BiH after the war and neither on the conditions that the repatriation takes place within. This thesis is therefor a pilot study and it is of an exploratory character. A visit to the country was necessary to be able to ascertain the situation in BiH. The interviews and the documentation we have collected in BiH have been crucial for our empirical research. Before the journey we prepared by studying the history and the current political system of the country. We had regularly contact with our mentor in Sarajevo and with the Swedish Embassy and we also established a contact with the UNHCR in Sarajevo. In this way we have tried to minimise the difficulties connected to our research. This is further discussed in the method section.
1.4 Central concepts
Displaced persons - people who have fled within the country.
Refugees - people who have fled outside the country, including the rest of the former Yugoslavia.
wEthnicity - in our thesis we will be using term Muslim or Bosnjak in order to describe descendants to those Slavs who during fifteenth century converted to Islam and whom 1971
were recognised as one of the constituted Yugoslavian people. Muslims are also called Bosnjaks, which actually is the proper term, since the term Muslim refers to religious affiliation and not to nationality or ethnicity. The term ethnic Serb or Bosnian Serb will be used to define descendants to those Slavs whom during the seventh century BC got the name Serbs and whose religion is Greek-orthodox, loyal to Constantinople.8 By terms Serb or Croat one can also express a nationality. For instance persons, who have citizenship in Croatia, are called Croats, even though they perhaps are not Catholics. The term Bosnian refers officially to all Bosnian people and citizens, regardless of affiliation, ethnical or religious. Still, it is common that the terms Bosnian Croat or Bosnian Serb are used in media, and other occasions, concerning Croats and Serbs living in Bosnia. This is because neither Bosnian Serbs nor Bosnian Croats in most cases do not, on grounds of principle, want to be called Bosnians.
International Community - a gathering name for the organisations and governments which are represented by OHR, Office of the High Representative in BiH
Attitudes - we have chosen to define attitudes in a social psychological term. Attitudes are fundamental and they are a predisposition to respond positively or negatively toward a social object. Thus attitudes represent the evaluative or feeling component to any stimulus in the environment.9
Norms - in social psychological terms norms provide general prescriptions for behaviours that are accepted and expected in a given culture or society. The influence of norms can range from conventional practises to formal legal codes.10
1.5 Disposition
Chapter one is an introduction chapter where the reader is provided a short description of the history of BiH. The chapter is a presentation of the relevance of the research and its aim, problems and other necessary information about the research.
Chapter two is a detailed presentation of the methodological material and problems. We introduce the methods we have used during our research and the problems connected to it. This chapter also consists of a presentation of the interviewees, who constitute the fundamental part of the empirical research.
Chapter three presents the theoretical framework, consisting of three blocks; structure and agency, institutionalism, and nationalism and ethnicity.
Chapter four gives a description of the structure and agents of the country and the central legal frameworks. It also discusses the problems connected to the structure and the frameworks.
Chapter five is discussing informal institutions and their influence on the repatriation issue. This means for instance a discussion of the culture and norms in BiH, including nationalism.
8
Sturesjö, Örjan, Jugoslavien – konflikt utan slut, Utrikespolitiska Institutet, Stockholm, 1992, p 42-44
9
Moghaddam, Fathali M, Social Psychological in Cross-Cultural Perspective, W.W. Freeman and Company, New York 1993, p 50
10
Chapter six concerns formal institutional problems and their impact on the repatriation issue. The chapter is divided in four sections; legal problems, administrative problems, co-operation and information flow and the chapter is completed with a discussion of the influence of the formal institutional problems on the repatriation process.
Chapter seven is the final chapter of the thesis and it consists of a closing discussion and of our conclusions.
2 METHOD
This thesis is based on a case study on the municipalities of Ilidza Federation (IF) and Ilidza Srpska (IS) in Bosnia and Hercegovina.
According to Robert K Yin, case studies are preferable when you are analysing contemporary processes and when you cannot manipulate with relevant variables. A study like this is non-experimental or descriptive. The researcher cannot separate the variables from the context or from the current situation. Case studies have many similarities with historical research, but where historical research largely is based on material from the passed and where the scientist has to rely on primary and secondary sources, another two sources can be added to the case study; interviews and participating observation. These two case study techniques will be treated as separate parts below. There are several varieties of case studies, e.g. they can deal with a process, an organisation, an institution, an event, a decision and so on, but they still have some common characteristics. A case study is an empirical research that analyses a contemporary phenomenon within its real context, where the boundaries between phenomenon and context are diffuse and where several different sources are being used.11
A case study can be defined by its specific characteristics and Merriam defines case studies in three special features; particularistic, descriptive and heuristic. A case study is particularistic when it concentrate on a particular situation, event, phenomenon or person and it is the case in itself that is important since it illustrates something that is important to the phenomenon at issue. Descriptive means that the case study gives a complete description of the event or entity that is being studied. Case studies include as many variables as possible and portray their interaction. Heuristic means that the study can improve the reader’s understanding of the incident that is being studied.12
About the heuristic feature of case studies Stake says;
Previously unknown relationships and variables can be expected to emerge from case studies leading to a rethinking of the phenomenon being studied. Insights into how things get to be the way they are can be expected to result from case studies13
Stake means that the knowledge we learn from case studies is different from the knowledge we get from other research methods. He means that case study knowledge resounds more with our own experiences since it is more concrete and sensory than abstract and theoretical. Case study knowledge is also more contextual which refer to that our experiences are rooted in the context in the same way as the knowledge learned from case studies. Finally Stake mentions that case study knowledge is based more on reference populations determined by the researcher. Thus unlike traditional research, the researcher participates in extending generalisation to reference population.14
11
Yin, Robert K, Case Study Research - Design and Methods, Sage Publications Inc, London 1994, pp 13
12
Merriam, pp 29
13
Stake, Robert E, Case Study Methodology - An Epistemological Advocacy, in Welsh, Case Study Methodology in Educational Evaluation, Minnesota Research and Evaluation Conference, Minneapolis 1981, p 47
14
Table 2. 1 Characteristic features of qualitative case studies Guba & Lincoln,
1981 Helmstadter, 1970 Hoaglin mfl, 1982 Stake, 1981 Wilson, 1979
thick description may improve
praxis
specifying inductive particularistic
empirically rooted results in
hypotheses description of participators and motives multiplicity of data holistic
holistic, realistic flexible design description of key issues
descriptive longitudinal
conversation-like applicable to
problems
indicates solutions specific qualitative
illuminates signification
heuristic
based on silent knowledge
Source: Merriam, B Sharan, Fallstudien som forskningsmetod, Studentlitteratur, Lund 1994, p 26
The case study method can be used to test a theory, but a qualitative case study is often used to create a theory, which however, is not the aim of this thesis. This thesis is of an exploratory character. Even an exploratory case study needs a theoretical base that let the reader know what is being studied, the aim with the study and from which criteria the study is being evaluated. The aim with a case study may also be to explain cause and effect when intervening in real-life situations that is too complex to experimental strategies. The objective may also be to describe the real-life situation within which some form of intervention has been made. Finally the aim may be to illuminate the intervention itself.15
Case studies can be based on several sources; documentation, archive, interviews, observing participation, participating observation or physical artefacts. Several of these sources are often used as gathering method in case studies.16 In this thesis we have been using three of the sources; documentation, interviews and participating observation to collect sufficient data. When it comes to the documentation we have used public documents from UNHCR, OSCE and OHR, critical reports from the International Crisis Group, ICG, documents and statistics from the municipalities and legal documents. During the stay in Sarajevo, we have had interviews with local politicians, local and national NGO-leaders and with international actors. Since we have actually been in Ilidza Federation and Ilidza Srpska, we have had the opportunity to look closer into how they work and how they act in different situations.
15
Yin, p 21, 38
16
2.1 Qualitative interviews
Most of the empirical material is based on the interviews and the observation that were made in Sarajevo in BiH.
Merriam calls the information that is conveyed by words, qualitative, while the information presented in numbers is called quantitative. Case studies often contain qualitative methods and qualitative data. Qualitative data may consist of thick descriptions of situations, events, people and observed behaviours. They may also consist of direct quotations about a person’s experiences, attitudes, opinions and thoughts. Finally, Merriam says, qualitative data may consist of extracts or entire sections of protocols, letters and case descriptions. Merriam means that the depth and the detailed character of the qualitative information can only be obtained by getting close to the phenomena that is being studied. Merriam reproduces Lofland’s words in this case. The requirement to be close, objective, and descriptive and to quote the sources constitutes the basis of the case study. According to Lofland, the characteristic of the case study is the process of an exploratory character.17 To be close to the phenomenon you study is something that we have endeavoured in our method. We have lived near Ilidza municipalities for five weeks and we have visited both municipalities several times. We have had the opportunity to see how they work both within the municipalities, how the co-operation is between them, but also the co-operation with the international actors in the area. We have also made several interviews with local politicians, local actors, national and federal actors and with international actors.
Our aim was to interview as many politicians, officials and other local actors as possible in both municipalities. We have also tried to get in contact with actors in other levels. This means that we have not had any specific selection. According to Merriam, a non-probability selection is the best method of selection when doing qualitative studies. We have interviewed a higher number of people in IF than in IS. The reason is that it was far more difficult to get in touch with actors in IS. To be able to get in contact with people at the municipalities at all, you should contact the International Community and ask for help. We tried to get in contact with municipalities on our own in the beginning, but we were just sent around and no one wanted to talk to us. The International Community told us later that the procedure we experienced was common. This characterised both municipalities, but it was most obvious in IS.
The last week when we were supposed to interview some politicians in IS, a problem situation appeared. A district, Dobrinja 1 and 4, situated at the border between the IF and IS, which was taken by the Serbs after the war, was returned to the Federation. This meant that 800 apartments occupied by Serb families were to be left in one day. This led to heavy demonstrations and we were not allowed to go to IS. For this reason we could not make the last interviews we had managed to book in IS. Thus, we have interviewed those responsible for the repatriation in IS, the OMI (Odsijek ministarstva za izbjeglice) employees. We have also interviewed a Serb politician in IF and some other Serb officials, which means that we consequently have both ethnic groups represented. This is nevertheless not a matter of course in IS since the interviewees of IS were difficult to persuade for interview. We were also supposed to interview the former Minister of Refugees and Displaced Persons in RS, but he unfortunately got ill and had to stay at the hospital for a longer period. Yet this was not the only case of a sudden, serious illness among the interviewees. A Serb politician, the Speaker
17
of the Municipal Assembly, got a heart attack a few days before the interview. His secretary then, on her own accord, booked a new appointment for us with the Deputy Speaker instead, without letting us now about the circumstances. She was not in the least familiar with our work or us, still she assumed that she knew what information we needed. Some of the interviewees were very suspicious and an employee at OMI, a lawyer, tried to convince us that he was not competent enough to answer the questions. Another, very suspicious person at the same department was certain of seeing one of us two months earlier and that we were lying about being at the municipality of IS for the first time. A possible explanation of IS negative attitude to interviews with us may be that their repatriation numbers were low and then they obviously have not fulfilled the demands of the International Community. If you have not done your homework, you avoid answering the questions. We believe that they were afraid of us as well since we came from abroad and they did not really seem to understand the purpose of our study.
We have chosen not to distribute any questionnaires to the interviewees before the meetings. The reason why we chose not to inform the interviewees of the questions in advance is that we did not want them to discuss the questions with each other or have time to contemplate over the questions before the interview. This would have constrained the spontaneity and variation in their answers. Several of the interviewees wanted us to tell them some of the questions before making an appointment with us which we see as another example of the constant suspiciousness that followed us.
There are several different ways of making interviews, but the most common classification is based on structuration and standardisation. The term structuration refers to two different occurrences. An interview can be completely open, which means that the interviewer ask wide open questions, to which the respondent can answer freely and they can give their opinion on how they perceive a situation or an event. This means that the respondent give his or hers subjective picture of the reality. This type of interview is called unstructured, but an interview may also be completely structured. In this case the interviewer asks questions in advance formulated and the order of the questions is also predetermined. The respondent answers the questions in predetermined answer alternatives. In structured interviews, the context is formally predetermined and in this case, the experience of the interviewee is not relevant. The interview form that is most structured, is the poll.18
The term standardisation refers to the degree that the questions and the situation are the same to all the interviewees. A high degree of standardisation then means that there are no variations, everything is the same to everybody. This means, for example, that the interviewer shall read the questions with the same intonation, as the questions are formulated and in the same order. A low degree of standardisation means the opposite.19 We have asked the same questions almost all interviewees, with a few exceptions. We have endeavoured to be flexible during the interviews, meaning that we when needed have asked resulting questions or that certain answers have lead to new thoughts and hence new questions. We have asked certain questions the international actors regarding sensitive issues that we have not asked the local politicians. This means that we have had a low standardisation in our interviews.
What kind of interview you should use depends on what degree of structuration you endeavour. You have interviews with strong structure on one side and open-ended interviews
18
Lantz, Annika, Intervjumetodik , Studentlitteratur, Lund 1993, pp 17
19
on the other side. In structured interviews, the interviewer decides the questions and the order in advance. Open-ended interviews may be preferable when the investigator does not have enough information of a phenomenon to be able to ask relevant questions. Thus there are no predetermined questions and the interview is basically exploratory.20 According to Yin, open-ended interviews are characterised by that the investigator values the respondent’s own opinions as much as the facts that the respondent presents. In the structured interview, on the other hand, the interest is in advance defined phenomena. The interviewer characterises the phenomenon, determines its qualities and delimits the context.21
Our questions can be described as open-ended. There have not been any predetermined answers and the respondents have been free to answer, as they liked. This freedom has yet led to the respondents not always answering within the frames of the questions, but trying to tell us about the issues they considered important. We can think of two reasons to this tendency; either they did not fully understand the question and answered what he or she thought we asked for, or that they had no answer to the question and instead chose to tell us something that he or she believed was important and relevant to our work.
When you are asking questions in qualitative studies, it is important that they are as open-ended as possible. It is important because then the interviewee has the possibility to inform the interviewer about things he does not know. As an interviewer you should not ask more than one question at the time and the question should be clearly formulated to reduce the risks for misunderstandings. A principal rule is also that the questions should be neutral and that the interviewer should avoid leading questions.22
According to Trost questionnaires with predetermined question should be avoided in qualitative interviewing. The point is that the respondent should be able to control the order of the questions. Instead of a questionnaire, the interviewer should write as list over question areas. The list should be short and consist of several major areas. This kind of guide may of course differ between interviewers. They must be comparable but they do not have to be identical.23 We wrote down all our questions on cards that made it easier to change the order of the questions when necessary. We wrote all the questions in both English and Serbo-Croatian, since we intended to make interviews in both languages.
Several factors are determining when it comes to make good interviews. According to Merriam, the interviewer should be neutral, respectful and non-judgmental and should be independent to the degree that the respondent’s answers may contradict the interviewer’s own norms and values. A skilled interviewer do not argue, pays attention to the verbal and non-verbal messages being sent and he is a good listener in a contemplating way.24 Since all interviews except one have been made in Serbo-Croatian and since only one of us speaks the language, it has been the same who has made the interviews. The exception is one German employee at UNHCR. Still we have both been present at all interviews since you can always take notes on how people react and respond the questions, and how they behave during the interview. The body language and reactions are something that you cannot observe when 20 Trost, pp 87 21 Yin, p 89 22
Jensen, Kjaer Mogens, Kvalitativa metoder för samhälls- och beteendevetare, Studentlitteratur, Lund 1991, p 70
23
Trost, p 25
24
listening to the tape afterwards or probably not even remember, but which is an important part of the interviews for a general impression.
According to Merriam there are three basic techniques to record interview data. The most common technique is to use a tape recorder and this is according to Merriam, the most appropriate method. By using the tape recording method, the interviewer ensures that everything that is said during the interview is preserved for analysis. By using this method, the interviewer also has the opportunity to look into his own effort and hence he can improve his technique for the other interviews. The disadvantages are the risk for a non-functioning equipment or that the respondent may feel uncomfortable in front of a tape recorder. A second technique to record interview data is to take notes during the interview. This method is usually only recommended when a tape recorder for some reason cannot be used. The reason is that it is impossible to write down everything that is said and therefor important information may be lost. The speed in the interview may also slow down because the respondent may wait for the interviewer to finish writing. This may result in uneasiness for the respondent and the respondent may also try to make the answers shorter to speed up the rate. The third method is to write down as much as the interviewer can remember, directly after the interview and this is the least desirable method.25
We share Merriam’s opinion that tape record is the best method to record interview data, even if the method entails both advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that you can listen to the choice of words and the intonation afterwards. The question technique is improved since both mistakes and things that were well done can be looked into closely. During the interview, the interviewer does not have to take a lot of notes, which gives you space to concentrate on the answers. Tape recording has been the main technique in our interviews but we have combined this method with taking notes during the interviews. All interviews were more or less transcribed immediately after the interviews, since memory is an important factor in analysis and interpretation. The drawback with this method is that it is extremely time-consuming to listen to the tape over and over again to be able to write down what has been said. Concerning the treatment of the material, Merriam thinks that a word-for-word transcription of the recorded interviews is the ideal way, since it provides the best database for analysis26, while other researchers as Trost, consider this method being too expensive and time-consuming.27 However, we preferred to write down word-for-word, since only then you can ensure that everything said during the interview is available to analysis. Almost all our interviews took place at the respondent’s office or place of work. We endeavoured to obtain at as quiet place as possible, since the respondent can then feel secure in the safe in well-known environment and it may then be easier to answer the questions in a more open and honest way. Because of ethical reasons, we have chosen not to name any of the respondents in our thesis and we have also within the limits of possibility for fulfilling the aim, promised anonymity to several of them. In BiH, distrust between different ethnic groups, but also towards the international co-workers is common, and this is something that we experienced several times. We had an appointment with an IF-employee who worked with evictions, but when she found out that we were going to tape, she became very angry and she threw us out. 25 Merriam, 1998, p 87 26 Ibid, p 88 27 Trost, p 113
2.2 Observing participation
Observations are an appropriate method in case studies when phenomena are to be studied in their natural context. In observations we use our senses in a more disciplinary and thought-out way than we usually do. Observations may tell you more about what people do, which may differ from what they say. Actions are though not always explanatory themselves, which means that the researcher has to form his own opinion of what he has seen.28
A researcher can choose several ways of being an observer that can stretch from total participation to being a total observer. If the researcher takes the role as a total participant he/she becomes a member of the group or the society that is being studied, but the researcher hides his/her real identity and does not tell anybody about his/her role as an observer. As a participant observer, the group knows the researcher’s role as an observer, but the participating role is more important than the observing role. As an observing participant, the role as the group also knows an observer, which also gives the observer more or less support. The role as a participant is here subordinated the role as an observer. In this way the researcher can gather a lot of information and get in contact with a lot of people. It is, however, the members of the group that determine the level or quality of the information. Finally, a researcher can be a total observer and he is then either invisible, for example behind a one-way mirror or as an anonymous part of the environment. The researcher almost never has the role as either total participant or as total observer. The most common form is the observing participant and then you are a passive participant and concentrate on the actual observations.29
There are some questions that the researcher should have in mind when doing observations. How should you do to create a meaning in what you do study and how should you treat and organise all the information you collect? Are you doing the right thing at the right time and are you talking to the right people? To what extent can the observer influence or control what is being studied? The ideal is that the situation is not influenced in a way that makes the information distorted. When you are interpreting the information it is important to have these possible distorting effects in mind.30
Yin talks about two different observation forms; direct and participating observation. Direct observation may for example be that the researcher is asked to study certain types of behaviour during a certain period. It can concern observations of meetings, of work in a factory, a classroom or anything a like. Direct observations may also be less formal and be done by visits at the place of observation and this then involves the occasions when other information and material are collected, for example from interviews and documentation. By for example study how a respondent has decorated his office you can assume what position or status he or she has in an organisation. In participant observation you are not, according to Yin, only a passive observer. As a participant observer you can adopt several different roles in a case study situation and you can even participate in the situation being studied. If you for example intend to study a society, your role as a participating observer can be everything from having temporary co-operation with different members of that society, to take a specific functional role in the society. This form of observation is mostly used in anthropological studies, but it can also be used in more everyday situations as in an organisation or in some 28 Merriam, 1994, pp 106-107 29 Merriam, 1998, pp 100 30 Ibid, p 103
other minor group. The benefit with this observation form is that you may have access to information that otherwise is hard to obtain to common scientific research. It may even be the only way to collect the information. There are also problems connected to participant observation. The participating role may require too much time and space so that the observing role may suffer. The researcher may not have time to collect the information or take the notes that is necessary to the research. As a researcher you have to consider both advantages and disadvantages and then you have to consider whether you are going to use observations as a collecting method or not.31
We have during nearly five weeks lived in Sarajevo and spent a lot of time in Ilidza. Hence, we have had the role as observing participants. During these weeks we have collected information and we have had the opportunity to meet several officials and assistants. We have studied their behaviour towards each other, towards the international and towards us. We have taken current notes of our impressions and reactions. At first we tried to get in contact with the local authorities ourselves, but the result was null and void. No one wanted to talk to us and instead they sent us further. We realised quite soon that contacts are crucial in BiH and without them you will not get anywhere. When we finally did get in contact with them, they were all quite unwilling to give us information and as an excuse they said that they were not allowed to do that without asking their boss. The international actors told us that we have been very successful in our interviewing. They also said that the local politicians and officials probably would have been more suspicious if we had been men. Another time consuming problem was that everybody seemed to have extremely difficult to remember or care about our appointments. Either they were late or they did not show up at all. When we met them afterwards, there were no excuses or regretting, probably because of disinterest in our work. Finally, an inevitable issue in this thesis is bias, since one of the writers has her roots in former Yugoslavia. Even if the author may intent to be impartial, the fundamental values are deeply rooted and it might be difficult to be self-critical enough to be able to recognise the bias in you. Therefor we have tried to be extra cautious and thoughtful, which has characterised our work. We have consistently discussed every step, from choice of the literature to each interviewee’s ethnical affiliation and attitude towards us. We have only used the literature and the newspapers, recognised by all three people. We have endeavoured the highest objectivity possible and our sources have been used very restrictively. We always double-checked all our information with UNHCR or other relevant organisation, whether necessary or not.
2.3 Interviewees
This is a presentation of the persons we have made interviews with. The presentation of the interview questions is found in Appendix 1.
Interviewee 1 - Bosnjak male, 52 years old, assistant of the IF Mayor and co-ordinator of the departments that work with the PLIP implementation. He represents the party SBiH.
Interviewee 2 - Bosnjak male, a member of the Mayors Cabinet in IF. He is in charge of the Department for Refugees and Displaced Persons, which is one of the nine departments in the
31
cabinet. He has a Masters degree in political science and he has 20 years long working experience. He is a member of the party Alliansa za promjene32.
Interviewee 3 - Croat male, 51 years old, Deputy speaker of the Assembly of Officers in IF and he is representing the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He has earlier worked for a Bosnjak-French organisation. He is a Master of Engineering and he has 25 years work experience.
Interview 4 - Serb male, 65 years old, the Head of the OMI in IS. He has 40 years working experience of which four years of the work similar to the assignment. He has studied law for three years at the university.
Interviewee 5 - Serb male, 32 years old, lawyer and official at the OMI in IS.
Interviewee 6 - Serb female, 47 years old, official at the OMI in IS. She has finished a senior high school and has 29 years work experience.
Interviewee 7 - Bosnjak female, 48 years old, President of the NGO, which is a network co-ordinator for all Bosnian NGOs. She is a lawyer and has worked as teacher in economy in high school and college for 20 years.
Interviewee 8 - Bosnjak male, 41 years old, the former Minister of Social Affairs, DPs and Refugees at the federal level. His mandate ended in March 2001 and he was not re-elected. He is an independent candidate, but is supported by the SDA. He is a Master of Business Administration and has worked in the public sector most of his life.
Interviewee 9 - Serb male, 39 years old, director of development and information of the NGO, DISS - Democratic Initiative of the Serbs of Sarajevo. He is also a member of the Parliament in IF and represents the party SDP. He is a PhD in political science. Before the war he worked in the private sector, but he has always in some way been involved in politics. Has been the President of the liberal party in Blazuj.
Interviewee 10 – Serb, male, 47 years old, lawyer, secretary and vice President of the DISS. He provides free legal counselling for those who want to return to Ilidza Srpska and also for those who want to come back to Ilidza Federation.
Interviewee 11 – Bosnjak male, 56 years old, President of a local NGO, Gornji Kotorac, which is also the name of a Serb village in IS. The office lies in IF but the organisation works for repatriation to Gornji Kotorac.
Interviewee 12 - Serb male, 45 years old, Associate Field Officer at UNHCR. He is a Master of Mechanical Engineering. He has earlier worked with R&D in energy issues and he has also worked for Caritas, a Catholic Global Help Organisation.
Interviewee 13 - Serb female, 30 years old, Field Officer at UNHCR. She is a Focal Point for IF and IS. She has earlier worked as an interpreter for IPTF.
32
This party may be translated as the Coalition of Change. It is a union of a number of small democratic parties that have gathered, building one single party in order to form an opposition strong enough to win a majority.
Interviewee 14 - German female, Associate Protection Officer at UNHCR, covering canton Sarajevo and Eastern Bosnia. She is a lawyer and has earlier worked as an assistant professor at a university.
3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this section we are presenting the theoretical framework of the thesis. We are using the theories in different levels starting at the top and then moving downwards to the theories that are central to the thesis. We begin at a meta analytical level introducing the theory of structure and agency that constitutes the frame of the thesis. This is the perspective we have chosen as starting point. Next we present the theory of institutionalism which constitute the main theory of the thesis and which is used as a concrete analytical tool to fulfil the aim. Finally we present nationalism and ethnicity that play a central role in Bosnia and Hercegovina.
3.1 The duality of structure and agency
Every time we have a political situation, the ideas about structure and agency become present, whether explicitly or implicitly. What model of the political nature are we referring to in our political explanations? Are the actors just helpless products of the institutional settings within which they find themselves or are they intentional and knowledgeable actors who have complete control over these settings? The answers to these questions will probably be different depending on the nature of the settings in which the agency occurs, but the discussion about structure and agency is still very significant. Colin Hay means that you cannot explain an event, an outcome or a situation without referring to both these notions. According to Hay structure and agency logically entail one another - ‘the social or political structure only exists by virtue of the constraints on, or opportunities for, agency that it effects’.33
In the passed most of the schools of thought have seen structure and agency as antinomies. Those schools that have been preoccupied with human action have paid little attention to the structures as an influencing factor. Nor have they found a way to relate theory of action to structural change. An author who has been preoccupied with this issue is Anthony Giddens. He has in several works tried to connect human action with structural explanation in social analysis. According to Giddens this requires knowledge about the conditions and consequences of action and an interpretation of the structure, that in different ways is entangled in those conditions and consequences. Giddens means that human action and structure presupposes one another.34
Giddens define action as involving; ‘a stream of actual or contemplated causal interventions of corporeal beings in the ongoing process of events-in-the-world’.35 Most authors refer to actions as rational. According to Giddens there are different kinds of actions; rational actions, motivated actions and reflexive monitored actions. The latter notion refers to the intentional character of human conduct, but it does not imply that actors consciously have definite objectives in mind when acting.36 It is a chronic feature of everyday action and it involves the behaviour of both the individual and that of others. Giddens distinguish between rational action and reflexive monitoring from motivation. He argues that if reason refers to the grounds of action, motivation refer to the wants, which induce it. This means that motivation
33
Hay, Colin in Marsh David and Stoker Gerry, Theory of Methods in Political Science, London 1995, p 189
34
Giddens, Anthony, Central Problems in Social Theory, Macmillan Press, London 1979, pp 49
35
Ibid, p 55
36
refers to what the actor want to do rather than what he actually does. Giddens also means that most of our day-to-day action is not directly motivated.37
Since action philosophy mostly has avoided questions of the unconscious it has had no interest in the unintended consequences of action. According to Giddens this is one reason why there has been a bridge separating the philosophy of action from institutional theories. Since there are unintended consequences of human action you cannot ignore structure as an explanatory factor, you cannot ignore the fact that structure and agency are interrelated. To Giddens it is the capability of making a difference, that is the main feature of human action.38
The study of structure has in the passed largely been synonymous with the study of function. The study of the structure of the society is to show how it works, to show the functions of society, ie there is a presumed relation between the two concepts. Structure here takes a descriptive form of explanation and this may, according to Giddens, be one of the reasons for lack of interest in the concept of structure. On the contrary, in the theory of structuralism, structure takes a more explanatory form and is here linked to the concept of change. Still structuralism and functionalism have certain common characteristics, both define a clear distinction between statics and dynamics and they also share a concern for both structures and systems. The relation between structure and system is rather vague and they tend to dissolve in one another. The term structure has in later writings been used as a substitute rather than a complement to the notion of system. Structuralism offers that one or the other notion is surplus, since they overlap each other so much. Giddens’ structure refers to structuring property, where properties refer to the rules and resources that are implemented in interaction. Rules and resources are organised as properties of social systems. Hence this means that systems have structures or at least structural properties, but they are not themselves structures.39 Giddens refers to institutions as ‘the most deeply embedded structural properties, implicated in the reproduction of societal totalities’.40
Structures are according to Giddens rules and resources that actors draw upon as they produce and reproduce society in their activities. Rules can appear in different shapes, some are more explicit than others are and others are unwritten, ie social rules. Resources can either refer to material objects or non-material factors like status or hierarchical position. Resources generate power. Taken together rules and resources enable people to do things, to make a difference in the social world. What Giddens means is that structures by providing rules and
resources generate behaviour.41 Rules cannot be separated from resources, since,
‘transformative relations are actually incorporated into the production and reproduction of social practises’. What Giddens means is that different types of power are expressed through structural properties.42
The notion of structuration includes that of the duality of structure and it expresses the interdependence of structure and agency. Giddens says that ‘the structural properties of social systems are both the medium and the outcome of the practises that constitute those systems’.43 By this he means that structures are both produced by human action and they are the medium
37
Giddens, Anthony, The Constitution of Society, Polity Press, Cambridge 1984, pp 5
38 Giddens, 1979, pp 55 39 Ibid, pp 60 40 Giddens, 1984, p 17 41 Giddens, 1979, pp 60 42 Giddens, 1984, p 18 43 Giddens, 1979, p 69
